Pantzar leads Uppsala Young Champions tournament

By Carl Fredrik Johansson

The Uppsala Young Champions tournament — taking place for a seventh time this year — is an elite chess event for players under the age of 20. The city of Uppsala, where the tournament is held, is located 70 km north of Stockholm. With approximately 230,000 inhabitants, the city counts with two large chess clubs.

One of them — Upsala Allmänna Schackklubb — was founded in 1905 and is one of the strongest clubs in Sweden. Börje Jansson is the most successful player from the club. He has participated in six Chess Olympiads for Sweden and still today, at the age of 78, plays at a very high level in the club’s competitions.

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The other club in the city is Uppsala Skolschacksällskap. It was founded exactly 100 years after the aforementioned club, and it is only aimed at kids and youth. Most of the club’s activities are related to promoting chess in schools. With its 500 members, the club is one of Sweden’s largest. Some of the club’s members have achieved a relatively high playing strength and, in order to allow them to face strong international competitors, the club started organizing the “Uppsala Young Champions” in 2014. Since then, the tournament has grown year after year. Now it attracts players from all over Europe.

This year’s edition suffered from acute problems just two days before the start, when local authorities tightened the corona recommendations in a way that made the competition impossible to be played in Uppsala. But the organizers managed in a short time to arrange an alternative venue in a municipality a short distance south of Uppsala, and the competition could start as planned last Friday. There are very good playing conditions at Hotel Scandic Infra City. Despite the restrictions, it is possible to play the games without any problems.

The show must go on

After 6 rounds, Swedish IM Milton Pantzar is leading the standings table with 5 points. Four players stand a half point behind — Jakub Kusa from the Czech Republic, FM Siem van Dael from the Netherlands, FM Hampus Sörensen from Sweden and FM Vignir Vatnar Stefansson from Iceland.

Standings after Round 6

Sweden’s number one Nils Grandelius participates as a commentator during some of the rounds (unfortunately in Swedish). Grandelius introduced three of the strongest young stars from the Nordic country at the official website.

Almost all Swedish top juniors are participating, including Jung Min Seo, who secured the IM title last weekend at the Swedish Team Championship, where a number of strong players from the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Austria, Holland, Denmark and Iceland participated.

The well-known commentator Fiona Steil-Antoni is the tournament’s commentator. Steil-Antoni is joined by some of Sweden’s strongest players during the broadcasts. 

In round 2, the commentators named the game between the Bulgarian Viktoria Radeva and Felix Blohberger from Austria the game of the round. Viktoria won nicely and quickly, and received a prize donated by ChessBase.

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Vikotria Radeva facing Vignir Vatnar Stefansson

Many attractive games have been played. Take for example this game between Kaan Küçüksarı and Hampus Sörensen from round 4.

Black plays the opening excellently and has a completely superior position, but White never stops fighting. During the last part of the game, all three results are possible. Highly entertaining!

Fully focused

All available games

Links

• Official site
• ChessBase sponsors this year’s Uppsala Young Champions